Colin Cotterill

Last updated

Colin Cotterill
Born (1952-10-02) 2 October 1952 (age 71)
London, United Kingdom
OccupationAuthor
NationalityBritish-Australian
Genre Mystery fiction
Years active2000–present
Notable worksDr. Siri Paiboun series

Colin Cotterill (born 2 October 1952) is a London-born teacher, author, comic book writer and cartoonist. Cotterill has dual British and Australian citizenship. He lives in Thailand, where he writes the award-winning Dr Siri Paiboun mystery series set in the Lao People's Democratic Republic, and the Jimm Juree crime novels set in southern Thailand. [1]

Contents

Biography

Colin Cotterill was born in London and trained as a teacher. He worked as a physical education instructor in Israel, a primary school teacher in Australia, a counsellor for educationally handicapped adults in the United States and a university lecturer in Japan. More recently he has taught and trained teachers in Thailand and on the Burmese border. He spent several years in Laos, initially with UNESCO, and wrote and produced a forty-programme language teaching series; English By Accident, for Thai national television.

Cotterill became involved in child protection in the region and set up an NGO in Phuket, which he ran for the first two years. After two more years studying child abuse and one more stint in Phuket, he moved on to ECPAT, an international organisation combating child prostitution and pornography, and established their training programme for caregivers. During this time Cotterill contributed regular columns to the Bangkok Post .

Cotterill set up the Books for Laos project to send books to Lao children and sponsor trainee teachers. Books for Laos receives support from fans of the books and is administered on a voluntary basis. He has also been involved in Big Brother Mouse, a not-for-profit publishing project in Laos founded by Sasha Alyson. [2] [ better source needed ]

Cotterill's first novel, The Night Bastard, was published by Suk's Editions in 2000. The positive reaction prompted him to become a full-time writer. His subsequent books include Evil in the Land Without (2003), Pool and Its Role in Asian Communism (2005), The Coroner's Lunch (2004), Thirty-Three Teeth (2005), Disco for the Departed (2006), Anarchy and Old Dogs (2007), Curse of the Pogo Stick (2008), The Merry Misogynist (2009), Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (2010), and Slash and Burn (2011).

In 2009 Cotterill received the Crime Writers' Association "Dagger in the Library" award as "the author of crime fiction whose work is currently giving the greatest enjoyment to library users". [3]

Since 1990 Cotterill has been a regular cartoonist for national publications in Thailand. A Thai-language translation of his cartoon scrapbook Ethel and Joan Go to Phuket was published by Matichon in 2004. On 4 April 2004 he launched an illustrated bilingual column, Cycle Logical, in the news magazine Matichon Weekly . Some of these columns have since been collected in a book.

Awards

Bibliography

Dr Siri Paiboun series

Jimm Juree series

Other publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larb</span> National dish of Laos

Laab / Larb is a type of Lao meat salad that is the national dish of Laos, along with green papaya salad and sticky rice. Laab in the Lao language is a noun that refers to meat or other flesh that has been finely chopped and pounded. It is also considered a food of good luck in both Laos and Thailand because it has homonyms that mean 'lucky' in both languages, derived from लाभ in Sanskrit. Laab is of Lao origin, but is also eaten in other regions, most prominently the neighboring former Lan Xang territory, or modern day Laos and the northeastern and northern areas of Thailand, Isan and Lanna where the Lao have extended their influence. Other local variants of laab also feature in the cuisines of the Tai peoples of Shan State, Burma, and Yunnan Province, China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Lovesey</span> British writer

Peter Harmer Lovesey, also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath.

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger is an annual award given by the British Crime Writers' Association for best thriller of the year. The award is sponsored by the estate of Ian Fleming.

<i>Thirty-Three Teeth</i> 2005 crime novel by Colin Cotterill

Thirty-Three Teeth is a crime novel by British author Colin Cotterill and published in 2005 by Soho Press. It won the 2006 Dilys Award.

<i>The Coroners Lunch</i>

The Coroner's Lunch is a crime novel by British author Colin Cotterill first published in 2004. It is the first installment in the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, set in the Lao People's Democratic Republic during the 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Williams (author)</span>

Timothy Williams is a bilingual British author who has written six novels in English featuring Commissario Piero Trotti, a character critics have referred to as a personification of modern Italy. Williams' books include Black August, which won a Crime Writers' Association award. His novels have been translated into French, Italian, Danish, Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, and Japanese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian McKinty</span> Irish crime novelist and critic

Adrian McKinty is a Northern Irish writer of crime and mystery novels and young adult fiction, best known for his 2020 award-winning thriller, The Chain, and the Sean Duffy novels set in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He is a winner of the Edgar Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Macavity Award, the Ned Kelly Award, the Barry Award, the Audie Award, the Anthony Award and the International Thriller Writers Award. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Robotham</span> Australian writer (born 1960)

Michael Robotham is an Australian crime fiction writer who has twice won the CWA Gold Dagger award for best novel and twice been shortlisted for the Edgar Award for best novel. His eldest child is Alexandra Hope Robotham, professionally known as Alex Hope, an Australian producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cara Black (author)</span> American writer

Cara Black is a bestselling American mystery writer. She is best known for the twenty-one novel mystery series featuring Aimée Leduc a female Paris-based private investigator, as well as the thrillers Three Hours in Paris, a national bestseller, and Night Flight to Paris. Black is included in the Great Women Mystery Writers by Elizabeth Lindsay 2nd edition. Her first novel Murder in the Marais was nominated for an Anthony Award for best first novel and the third novel in the series, Murder in the Sentier, was Anthony-nominated for Best Novel. Her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pumpkin-coconut custard</span>

Pumpkin-coconut custard is a Southeast Asian dessert, consisting of a coconut custard steam-baked in a whole pumpkin or kabocha. It was created by Maria Guyomar de Pinha in Ayutthaya Kingdom in 17th century as an adaptation of a Portuguese egg-based dessert.

Henry Chang is an American detective story author from New York City. Born and raised in Chinatown, Chang bases his Detective Jack Yu Series primarily in this setting, and his objective "insider's" view influences the development of his stories' settings. His series focuses on the violence and poverty in Chinatown which he witnessed as he grew up. He is a graduate of CCNY. He began writing his first novel whilst working as a director of security for the Trump Organization.

Barbara Cleverly is a British author born in Yorkshire and a former teacher. She graduated from Durham University and now works in Cambridgeshire. She is known for her Detective Joe Sandilands Mystery series, of which she has written thirteen books, and her Laetitia Talbot Mystery series. Shortlisted in 1999, Cleverly received the Crime Writers Association Ellis Peters Historical Dagger award in 2004. The Last Kashmiri Rose was a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in Cambridge, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Downing</span> British author

David Downing is a British author of mystery novels and nonfiction. His works have been reviewed by Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is known for his convincing depictions of World War II and Berlin. He has written a series of espionage thrillers, based around Anglo-American character John Russell exploring Germany in the 1940s. They are known as "The Station Series" because they are all named after train stations, mostly in Berlin.

Agnete Friis is a Danish writer who is best known for co-authoring Drengen i kufferten, or The Boy in the Suitcase with Lene Kaaberbøl. The book was short-listed for the Scandinavian Glass Key Award, competing against The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and received the 2008 Harald Mogensen award for best crime novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mette Ivie Harrison</span> American novelist

Mette Ivie Harrison is an American novelist. She writes young adult fiction and in 2014 began publishing an adult mystery series. Her background as a Mormon has influenced her topics of interest as a writer, especially in the A Linda Wallheim Mystery series which focuses on a Mormon woman within her religious community. Her novel, Mira, Mirror won the Utah Letters About Literature award in 2006, and three other novels were finalists for the AML Awards in 2007, 2014 and 2015.

Sharon Bolton is a British author of mystery fiction who has also been published under the name S.J. Bolton.

<i>The Lock Artist</i> 2010 crime novel by Steve Hamilton

The Lock Artist is a standalone crime novel by American novelist Steve Hamilton. It was first published in 2010 by Minotaur Books. The story centers on a young man with a talent for lock picking.

<i>Camille</i> (Verhœven series)

Camille is a crime novel written by French novelist Pierre Lemaitre. The novel, though originally published in French in 2012, came to be translated to English by Frank Wynne in 2015. It won the CWA International Dagger award 2015 amidst much international acclaim. It is the 3rd novel in the Camille Verhœven series by publication order.

Martin Limón is an American writer of mystery fiction. He is the author of fourteen books in the Sueño and Bascom series, including Jade Lady Burning and the short story collection Nightmare Range, inspired by his time in Korea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Whitaker (author)</span> British author

Chris Whitaker is a British author known for his books Tall Oaks, All the Wicked Girls, We Begin at the End, and The Forevers.

References

  1. Janssen, Peter (15 February 2018). "Author puts Lao coroner-detective on Asian literary map". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  2. "Books for Laos". Colin Cotterill. Retrieved 8 September 2016. details
  3. 1 2 "2009 CWA Daggers". The Crime Writers' Association . Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  4. "Stop, You're Killing Me! website, Dilys Award 1992-2011" . Retrieved 22 June 2012.
  5. "crime fiction convention in Bristol, UK". Crimefest. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  6. "Frances Fyfield wins the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger 2008". Thecwa.co.uk. 13 October 2011. Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 26 January 2012.
  7. [ dead link ]
  8. "Stop, You're Killing Me! website, Dilys Award 1992-2011" . Retrieved 22 June 2012.
  9. "Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine- Barry Awards". Deadlypleasures.com. 9 October 2008. Archived from the original on 23 April 2012. Retrieved 26 January 2012.